PLACES OF INTEREST

BELAPUR FORT.

Bela'pur Fort, on an island of the same name about a mile long and somewhat less than a mile broad, commands the entrance to the Panvel river about five miles west of Panvel. It was described by Captain Dickinson in 1818 as about 400 feet from north to south, and divided midway, its breadth being about half its length. Near the north point, on a rising ground about seventy- five feet high and about 800 feet from the river, were the ruined remains of a battery, part of which supported the roof of an old guard-room. On a somewhat lower point of land, nearer the mouth of the river, were the remains of another battery like the first, supporting an old roof on either side of which were the ruins of a breast work. Both batteries were under cover of the fort guns. Except the north gateway and two round towers on the south face, the fort works were utterly ruinous. The works, including wretched parapets from two to four feet wide, were nowhere more than eight feet thick and varied from six to twenty feet high. The facing or revetment of part of the works was destroyed by violent rain in 1818. Except a low hut and a low ruined well, whose water lasted only a short time after the rains, the interior of the fort showed nothing but ruins. The harbour, about fifty-five feet from the fort, was defended by a low wall running along the top of the river bank. In the wall were two towers the better placed of which was about twenty feet high, and from its height and capacity was a little fort in itself. The battery above was excellent and roofed. A store room of the same size underneath the ground floor was formerly used as a prison. The enclosure was entered by a gate and had at one end a battery much like the other two, and like them commanded by the fort above.

Under the Portuguese Belapur isle was one of the seven divisions subject to Bassein the capital of the north. It included Panechana with thirty villages, Cairana with seventeen villages, and Sabayo with seventeen villages.[Da Cunha's Bassein, 206. Panechana is probably Panvel, Cairana is Khairne eight miles north of Belapur, Sabayo is Shahabaz close to Belapur. Belapur is perhaps Belawal mentioned (1570) as an European Konkan port. Bird's Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 129.] In 1781 a British resident was stationed at Belapur and in 1817 (23rd June) it was taken charge of by Captain Charles Gray. [Mr. W. B. Mulock, C.S.]